Monday, August 30, 2010

At Left, a Free Form radio station I grew up with in Pittsburgh; they were truly eclectic and non-programmed from about 1968 to 1979. This was my older brother's favorite radio station; hence it was also mine. Don't look for it now, WYDD is long since gone. But Radio Anthrocide MAINTAINS.

As your host DJ Timothy continues into his annual late-Summer malaise that is exacerbated by a natural laziness compounded by a stifling depression, "theme" shows can be expected to continue to decline. We'll get back to all of that business in a few weeks- I'm particularly interested in producing an all-Soviet Era Prog broadcast, which should be a first and also should just rock- but for now, prepare for a few weeks of whatever-the-hell-I-feel-like-playing Radio Anthrocides, which should still be worthy of your time as I maintain a prodigious supply of music on the old hard drive and, of course, am possessed of unparalleled taste. So don't stop tuning in, is what I'm saying.

As for RA#16, other than a dread technical glitch which caused me to stop the show at the end of the third hour, I feel this was just a jack-damn dandy mix of stuff that- up 'till now- simply hasn't had a home on previous RA broadcasts. Starting with a wall of Post Punk and cheerfully daft-brilliant Art Rock, we got things going with one of my favorite artists of all time- Brian Eno- from unquestionably one of the finest albums ever made, Here Come The Warm Jets. It's kind of hard to believe that Wire and Gang Of Four have not been played up 'till now, but this has been the case, since I've been all Progged out since the beginning of this show. I took care of that this past week, playing a track that can only be described as brutal from Wire- "Mercy"- and the Gang checked in with "Damaged Goods", just another one of the almost-perfect songs on an album that just goes on and on with almost-perfect songs. There was also a somewhat-little-known track from Adrian Belew's Young Lions album, with really good vocals from David Bowie. This can be seen as perhaps the last decent music Bowie was ever a part of; sad but true, but going on twenty years now. This wouldn't have happened if he'd never got mixed up with David Geffen.

Other show highlights include New England Heavy-Psych monsters Euclid (a band that is all dead now- which is really creepy to think about) and their eleven-minute suite of songs that opened Heavy Equipment, an awesome guitar solo from a very young Steve Hillage playing with Arzachel, King Crimson from an aawesome show recorded in Berkeley, CA in the early 80's, my beloved Spirogyra led by the sneering genius of Martin Cockerham, an epic Folk rocker from the brilliant and beautiful Fairport Convention ("A Sailor's Life"), two tracks from the fabulous late 60's Psych-sploitation masterpiece from Rust, a marvelous bit of avant-guitar from Philadelphia's Glenn Branca and...oh ever so many other wonderful things. I enjoyed doing a strictly Free Form show so much that I'm going to do it again...and also because, as mentioned, I am severely depressed. Cheers to all, and I hope to see you again, as always, Saturday night at 8pm PST, and, as always, only on Radio23.org. - TKR

Monday, August 23, 2010

At Left, the largest thermonuclear weapon ever developed, the Soviets' "Tsar Bomba" with a yield of 57 megatons- though 100 was theoretically possible, but would have destroyed the plane that dropped it. The mushroom cloud pictured eventually rose to an astonishing 210,000 feet. A fine example of nuclear fusion, and, not coincidentally, Anthrocide in practice.

RA#15 tackled a difficult and much reviled style of music this past Saturday night, namely Fusion, which most serious music fans still disparage due to some egregiously awful records made by a variety of navel-gazing and forever noodling bands who, it must be admitted, can really ruin your appetite for all things Jazzrock. This is very unfortunate, since- as I hope my show proved- good Fusion Jazz is heavy, intense, skillfully played and...cool. And goddammit I mean just that it is COOL.

The show started with an insane track from Magma, one of RA's most beloved bands, and featuring what has to a first in music history- Kobaian Scat. Other highlights of the show included a very melancholy and meditative bit of Jazz guitar from Norwegian Terje Rypdal, from his very best album Odyssey. I was beyond thrilled to have an excuse to play Prague's own Jazz Q, who- along with fellow Czech Fusion-ish rockers Modry Efekt (Blue Effect) formed an incredibly talented core of expressionist Jazz in the darkest days of the Stalinist dictatorship. Remember, of course, that after Charter 77 was signed and the Husak government began to crack down on matters cultural, several thousand people were arrested after attending a Plastic People of The Universe concert- an "illegal" concert for which no permit had been obtained. It can only make you respect these bands even more.

Poland has been unusually adept at producing Jazz talent, from the early days of Kryzstof Komedaand thru a 70's Fusion-dominated scene that also had to deal with harassment from the auhorities. I played Laboratorium's moody piece "Cichy Kacik" and then followed with one of my favorite Jazz acts in years- the late and lamented Robotobibok, who produced two albums (Jogging and the album from which the track I played, Instytut Las) that must be considered Modern Jazz masterpieces. I highly encourage you to check these guys out (and join my Facebook tribute to the band as well!) even though they have moved on to other things. A really great band.

As always, there was lots of music to play and, I hope this is true for most of you, something different that you're not going to hear anywhere else. DJ Micah's favorite Italian Fusion act Area brought some madness to the proceedings, as well as the more restrained sounds of Picchio dal Pozzo, from their very overlooked second album Camere Zimmer Rooms. More mellow sounds came from Zeuhl-ish outfit Setna, and founding Magma member Teddy Lasry. And of course no Fusion show could possibly be complete without Ian Carr's Nucleus.

Ok, there's the performance notes, below the setlist and shows- and I will see you all Saturday night, with...something different. Cheers, - TKR

Monday, August 16, 2010

Episode 14 of Radio Anthrocide explored the wonders of German hippiedom, perhaps the freest and most deliberately archaic Progressive "scene" ever mounted anywhere; with epic jams and scads of drugs and seemingly everything hinging on how good a groove the drummer and bassist could bring off...Krautrock really is "music for your mind", and a fine and lengthy trip Saturday night was, if I may say so myself.

The show started- fittingly, cacophonously- in mid-frenzied guitar solo with The Canplunging headlong into my favorite song of theirs, "Mother Sky". This track is from the lesser-known Soundtracks album, and was actually produced for Skolimowsky's total bummer of a coming-of-age film Deep End. You'll have to see the movie for insight about what I'm talking about, but it doesn't fit the joyous, rambunctious insanity that The Can brought to their music, some of the most beat-friendly and groove-thick avant-rock you'll ever hear. It's best to see The Can in their natural element, that is playing live; check this video out here and behold the magic. I love everything about them here, but especially the ridiculous precision of Jaki on the drum kit and the frenzy of Damo leading the festivities; the girl acking the has pipe towards the end of the video is also worth the price of admission on this one, IMHO.

We heard from lots of different kinds of Krautrockers- Deuter, who followed The Can, may have gone on to some truly reprehensible New Age nonsense, but his first two albums- and especially D from which tonight's track was taken- are in the best spirit of the "Kosmiche" music Ohr Records' founder Rolf Kaiser was going for with his idea of a peculiarly "German" type of Acid Rock, and not the homogenized American-sounds being foisted upon the world even then (culminating, many years later, in DavidHasselhoff becoming a major music star in the country; of course, this is also the country that came up with Richard Clayderman all by itself, so maybe it's unfair to blame us for this catastrophe). Keeping with that, it might be worth discussing Walter Wegmuller's truly epic album Tarot, from which we heard "Der Narr" and "Der Magier" ("The Fool" and "The Magician", respecitvely). A freakish, mind-bending incredibly-vast project that came complete with a full deck of Tarot cards designed by Wegmuller himself in the original double-LP vinyl package, this is almost a who's-who of Kosmische musicians playing with the Swiss artist Wegmuller, who didn't even actually play any instruments (or even "sing" very much): Manuel Gottsching of Ash Ra Temple and Klaus Schulze of...a lot of bands are the most recognizable names, but it was clear that if Wegmuller wanted to make some crazy album about the Tarot deck, he was going to be supplied with the best Kosmische musicians to get the job done right.

There is so much that could be said about this program, but it would be criminal not to mention Grobschnitt's contribution, the middle three sections to their absolutely epic 57-minute guitar jam, Solar Music: Live. Truly one of the most awe-inspiring live albums ever recorded, Stefan Danielak and Gerd Kuhn trade guitar parts for the better part of an hour, and only rarely do things bog down or get momentarily boring. Not wanting to eat up a full one-fourth of the show playing one extended track, I picked the three most rocking middle parts and think that was sufficient, however...I strongly encourage you to go out and find- and listen to- the entire magnum opus. This is truly an exhausting display of technical proficiency and improvisation not likely to ever be heard again.

The usual obscurities were featured, including an ex-Eloy members one-and-doner called Ego On The Rocks, with a terrifically abstruse little number called "Un(all)gemeine Besterzung", which seems to have no translation possible to English. I was particularly thrilled, however, to bring listeners the super-rare sounds of Ejwuusl Wessahqqan, which was basically four German students/musicians who were locked in the basement of a house in Munich sometime in 1974, given prodigious amounts of drug supplies, and told to improvise some music. Lots was made, and what I consider to be one of the "freest" albums ever made was the self-titled (and lone release) from this splendid bunch of German young people. In many ways, this is the "ultimate" or certainly most "pure" Krautrock experience, and even though it often drags and is certainly not fit for anyone not truly into the Krautrock demi-monde, this is an album I often fall back on when there simply is too much "normal" music in my transom for the day.

Anyway, that's all for this week and I will see you- as always- at 8pm PST on Cascade Community Radio, this week with the (promised) and dread...FUSION SHOW!!! Be there and be REAL square this week, baby! - TKR

Monday, August 9, 2010

At Left: Two views of one of the greatest synthesizers of them all, the ARP-2500. It can be heard in the opening to "Who Are You?"and was a favorite of Walter/Wendy Carlos; it's also responsible for arguably the most famous five-notes in cinema history, when Man communicates with the Aliens in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".

Radio Anthrocide had another delightful evening of music on hand- at least for the host, yours truly, who, again, had as much fun as he's ever had in his life putting together a daunting and obscurantist collection of knob-turning exegesis from frantic Frenchmen and mad-genius Krauts. With only few entries of more mainstream and Techno-friendly tracks, episode 13 was probably the most avant-nutty of all of my shows yet. And my love for Berlin School and beyond never abates, so prepare for more of this kind of an assault in the future.

The show started with the great Igor Wakhevitch, probably my favorite avant-garde composer of all time and a man seemingly dedicated to getting inside the listener's head and scrambling their fucking brains. "Let's Start" from the same-titled 1979 LP is interesting to me because- for one- I hated it the first time I heard it. Since then, things have fallen into place, and I don't think it would be a good idea to admit how many times I can sit and listen to this album over and over and over again; I'm still clinging to the fantasy that some people believe that I'm sane.

Other show highlights included some very dark Ambient music from Seattle native Jeff Greinke, whose album Cities In Fog is about as perfectly-described by its title as is humanly possible. There were two interesting lost-fragments of 70's quasi-avant music, first from Library veteran Serge Bulot and then- cheating a bit- a masterful atonal arrangement for church organ by Franco Battiato called "Canto Fermo"; interestingly, this album is absolutely REVILED by the reviewers over at the Prog Archives, averaging an incredible 1.5 rating; proving, yet again, that the power of PRIC may be vast, but their taste and discretion meager.

Bruce Haack deserves special mention here for his contribution from the album Haackula,a pleasant little Electro-ditty made with home-built synthesizers called "Man Kind", said album being so incredibly nasty, mean-spirited, jaded and cynical that not only did Haack's label refuse to release it...they kept the master tapes and wouldn't give them back. Haack was an Electronic pioneer from Canada, who- and this is serious- made his name writing children's music which met great acclaim; later in life, somehow embittered by the internecine vicissitudes of the music industry, he went nuts, made this album...and died a few years later. The Great Cultural Noise Machine claims another victim.

Avant-garde nuttiness abounded, with some Roedelius, vintage Tangerine Dream from the album Zeit(a PRHOI Top-50 album and guest-reviewed- with admirable skill- by Sean Kelly here) and then the terror of Philippe Besombes and Kluster, taking things to the absolute limit of comprehension and weirdness with part one of their amazing album ZweiOsterei. Mellowing a bit in the closing segment, there was some nifty Kraftwerk remixes and a bit of fun from Space Art, exalted Electro-disco from their album Playback called "Folkstone Hovercraft". And closing with the great Terry Riley is never a bad idea- so that's what I did.

As always...I do hope at least some of you enjoyed the show, and I hope to see you Saturday night, as always, on Radio23 and Cascade Community Radio- this week with mad-outrageous amounts of pure fucking insane Krautrock. Cheers, and remember...Be There And Be Square. - TKR

Monday, August 2, 2010

At Left: Your host's favorite Prog album of them all, the magnificent Lark's Tongues In Aspic from the staggeringly talented early-70's King Crimson.

Radio Anthrocide dumped its wave of Scandinavian tributes for the week of show #12 and went for an all-Prog format. No bells, no whistles, no gimmicks, just this writer's roots; mad obscurantism and album-side-long treatises on the entire meaning and scope of life. Look for more of these as your correspondent DJ Timothy decided about half-way thru the show that he was having more fun with an avalanche of Prog than he had with virtually anything he had done for years.

The show started with the great Marian Varga and Czechoslovakia's greatest Rock band, Collegium Musicum, from their 1971 magnum opus Konvergencie, an absolutely massive work clocking in at 82 minutes in the original release and a staggering 136 with the CD issue of early 2000. I chose "Concerto In D" to represent the album because of the mind-blowing keyboard solo by Varga and also because the rather cheesy symphonic opening was mandated by the Czech secret state police- only in Stalinist countries could genius like Varga's be so mindlessly assailed. (The idea was to make the music of this rather raucous band more "Classical", and not in the "decadent" style of the Western bands, of which ELP would be the nearest comparison to CM. Too much fun was something definitely frowned upon by the stooges installed by Moscow after the rambunctious attempt at "another path" to Socialism in the Prague Spring of '68) The troubles CM faced at the hands of the authorities are legion and legendary; the original album covershowing a very decadent-looking Varga in jeans jacket and an almost-pimpish cap, with a dangling cigarette; that had to go, and the state cultural administration would only allow the album to be released after it was bowdlerized to this more Socialist-Realist construction...which obviously is also more boring. The album, on the other hand, is flat-out amazing and easily matches anything released during the Classic Prog era in the West. And the solo you'll hear in the "Concerto"- with all of the many allusions to Bach- is simply stunning.

Highlights of the show following this dramatic opening included King Crimson from a near-riotous concert in Glasgow, 1973- my very favorite of all of the 48 Crimson concerts I maintain on my hard drive, and including the wondrous moment when a rather pissy Fripp lectures the crowd about waiting to cheer until the "numbers" have been completed...and then not too loudly, please. And- whilst playing some of the more famous Prog bands this week (a rarity for RA and perhaps exemplified by Genesis performing "Supper's Ready" in toto from a stunning concert in Montreal, 1974- replete with a game attempt at Quebecois French by Peter Gabriel) I also, as is my custom, dug deep into the history of the form and gave The Norman Haines Band and the curiously-named Public Foot The Roman their due on this extravagant and very- satisfying-to-produce show. And let's face it- you can never really hear too much Peter Hammil, and the intricate and profound "A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers" is still one of the two or three most beautifully-realized Progressive Rock epics of them all. As always, I do hope you enjoyed the presentation, and will join me again this coming Saturday for the second show of RA to tackle the daunting subject of Progressive Electronic music. Cheers, - TKR